Faculty
GIS professionals teaching tomorrow's GIS professionals
Sean Moran, GISP
Mr. Moran is an ACC GIS Professor. He has over 20 years of professional planning, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) experience. He has extensive experience utilizing information technology to facilitate planning, engineering, and environmental projects. Prior to coming to Austin Community College (ACC) in 2009, Mr. Moran taught applied GIS to graduate-level planning students in the School of Architecture at the University of Texas. He has a BS in Urban Forestry from Texas A&M University and an MS in Urban Planning from the University of Texas.
GIS areas of specialty: Field Collection, Regional Planning, Local Government
Sally Holl, MSc, GISP
Ms. Holl is an ACC GIS Associate Professor. Formerly a Geographer at the USGS, she has more than 20 years’ experience in GIS, project management, earth sciences, and education. Her professional accomplishments include building partnerships for international conservation GIS; a national application track $200M in Federal surface water funding; leading development of GIS software to map water flows and quality; designing components of the National Atlas Streamer web application; and creating the myScience web application to increase public engagement in USGS science. Ms. Holl was invited to speak for the U.S. Secretary of the Interior’s first visit USGS headquarters in 2013. She earned an MS. from UT Austin, a BA from Oberlin College, and a Secondary Science Education Teaching Certificate from Cal State Fullerton.
GIS areas of specialty: Cartography, Remote Sensing, Geosciences, Hydrology & Hydrogeology, Federal Government, Data Management, Project Management
Stephanie Long, GISP
Mrs. Long is an ACC GIS Professor. She holds a Master of Science in Geography from Texas State University in San Marcos and she has over 15 years of experience as a GIS professional. Stephanie Long was recently the GIS Systems Coordinator for Texas Parks and Wildlife within the IT Division of their Headquarters Building located in Austin, Texas. Here she led a team of GIS Support and Service professionals for over 300 users across the state. She has taught college courses for several counties and districts since 2008, including the subject matters of World Geography, Physical Geography, Cultural Geography, Introduction to GIS, and Raster Analysis with GIS. Formerly, her work has taken her from the heat of the Mojave Desert to the cold of a blizzard in Wyoming. Her presentations at professional conferences have covered topics such as “Python as a GIS Intern” and “The Application of GIS in the Environmental Impact Analysis of Transmission Line Routing” and “What’s New in Automating GIS Workflows” and “Programming with GIS?! Yes You Can!”. Recently the Geography Department of Texas State University presented Stephanie with the Mary Beth Booth Award for Outstanding Service by an Extramural Educator in recognition of her history in preparing students for success. Stephanie was also spotlighted by Austin Community College for her work developing online GIS courses and was announced as ACC eFaculty of the Year for 2020.
GIS areas of specialty: Oil & Gas Industry, Environmental Science, Scripting & Programming, Information Technology, State Government, Private Consulting
Craig Eissler
Mr. Eissler is the GIS Program Manager at the Capital Area Council of Governments (CAPCOG) based in Austin, Texas. His work over the last three years includes leading the direction for a regional GIS Enterprise/Portal, managing the GIS/911 database program and the orthoimagery data acquisition program. He is also very involved with integrating GIS and spatial analysis into other projects. Prior to going back into the conventional workforce, Mr. Eissler spent over 10 years as an independent GIS consultant doing business as Geo-Tech Visual Power. As a contractor for the Texas Geographic Society (TXGS) and other organizations, he specialized in project management, natural hazard risk analysis, training, and technical writing. His relevant professional experience spans more than 30 years, and includes part-time GIS instruction at the college and professional level for over 15 of those years. Mr. Eissler holds a Bachelor’s degree in Geography and Planning from (Southwest) Texas State University and a Master’s degree in Geographic Information Systems from Penn State University.
GIS areas of specialty: Natural Hazards, Floods/Hurricanes, Emergency Management, Risk Analysis
Brent Porter
Brent Porter has been working with geospatial technologies in one form or the other for the past 22 years. Pairing that with his passion for IT and programming means he has never been bored. Most recently he works with the Center for Space Research at the University of Texas developing resilient enterprise architecture, services and applications that harness remote sensing and critical infrastructure datasets to provide outreach to the local, state and federal partners in the context of public safety and disaster response.
GIS areas of specialty: Geosciences, Data Management, Scripting and Programming, Information Technology, Disaster Response/Public Safety, Enterprise GIS, Web GIS
Christian Hartnett, MSc, RPA, GISP
Christian works full time as a regional director for GIS at SWCA Environmental Consultants. He started using GIS as an undergraduate studying classical archaeology at the University of Texas at Austin and received his master's degree in the application of GIS and spatial analysis to archaeology from the University College London. He is currently working on his MBA from Louisiana State University - Shreveport. Christian is both a certified GIS Professional (GISP) and a Registered Professional Archaeologist (RPA). He has published work relating to applications of GIS to archaeology as well as the development of mobile data collection systems for environmental fieldwork.
Daniel Waktola, PhD
Daniel K. Waktola is an Associate Professor of Geography, holding a Ph.D. in Remote Sensing and GIS; MSc in Soil Survey and Land Evaluation, and BA in Geography. He has over 18 years of experience as an educator and researcher. Prior to joining Austin Community College, Daniel taught Geography/GIS courses in community colleges, undergraduate, and postgraduate programs in Ethiopia and California. His research focuses on the application of geospatial technologies on the environmental and educational challenges and presents them both in local and international forums. Daniel has published over 15 research academic papers in peer-reviewed journals.
Braniff Davis
Braniff Davis has been working in the GIS field since 2006, in both the public and private sectors. Currently, he serves as the GIS Administrator for the Texas Water Development Board’s Water Service Boundary Viewer, a web GIS application that tracks water retail boundaries for 4500+ water systems in Texas. Before that, he served as a GIS Analyst with the City of Houston, where he also taught a GIS crash course for city employees. His work with the City of Houston focused on street and road data management, as well as the impacts of Hurricane Harvey on the city. Prior to joining Austin Community College, he taught Intro to Weather and Climate at San Jose State University in San Jose, CA. He has a B.S. in Geography from The University of Georgia.
GIS areas of specialty: Data Management, Local Government, Floods/Hurricanes, Wildfire Analysis
Stephen Bond
Stephen Bond is currently a GIS Programmer at the Texas Water Development Board, where he has supported several web applications used for visualizing and disseminating water and climate data. Prior to his role as a programmer, Stephen worked for the same agency as a hydrogeologist. Stephen holds a Master of Science in Energy and Earth Resources from The University of Texas at Austin and is a Texas licensed Professional Geologist. In his spare time he enjoys pottery, playing guitar, hiking, and being generally terrible at a wide array of video games.
GIS areas of specialty: Geosciences, Hydrology & Hydrogeology, Data Management, Environmental Science, Scripting & Programming, Information Technology, Data Automation, and State Government
Nathan Smith
Nathan Smith is currently the Geospatial Services Manager for the City of Round Rock within the IT Department.
He leads a team responsible for developing geospatial solutions, administering GIS, asset management, permitting and land management systems, and coordinating all geospatial data-entry efforts for over 750 users across 15 different departments.
Prior to the City of Round Rock, Nathan worked at Esri in Redlands, CA as a Technology Lead for ArcGIS Enterprise and started out as a Support Analyst on the Enterprise Team.
His presentations at professional conferences have covered topics such as “Bringing Smart Parking to the Public with GIS”, “Taking Data Visualization to the Next Level”, “Taking Cityworks to the Next Level”, “Creating Authoritative Content in ArcGIS Online” and “Best Practices for Geoprocessing Services”.
Recently, Esri wrote a case study on Nathan’s team’s use of ArcGIS Monitor with the City of Round Rock, “Round Rock, Texas, Resolves Critical System Outages with Enterprise Monitoring Solution”. Cityworks also published a case study on his innovations in data visualization, “The City of Round Rock: Using eURLs and ArcGIS Dashboards to Visualize Data”.
Nathan was spotlighted by City of Round Rock for his team’s innovative work developing geospatial solutions and was ranked 12th overall in PSD Citywide’s 2022 North American Geospatial Maturity Index.
His hobbies include playing guitar and piano, recording music, hiking, camping, backpacking, walking his dog, watching documentaries, riding his OneWheel and watching Austin FC.
GIS areas of specialty: Local Government, Data Management, Project Management, Scripting & Programming, Information Technology, Data Automation
Nathan Pasley
Adjunct Professor Nathan Pasley is a native Austinite who spent the first 7 years of his academic pursuits at Austin Community College. Nathan received a BS in Geographic Information Science (summa cum laude) in 2019, and an MS in Geography in 2022, both from Texas State University. Nathan has worked as a computational geographer for the US Geological Survey since 2018, where his work has focused on the development and implementation of Python-based machine learning algorithms to extract river inundation extent from Landsat imagery. Nathan's academic research has focused on using machine learning to study the effects of urban growth upon aquifer recharge in the Barton Springs Zone in southwest Austin. In his free time, Nathan enjoys bodybuilding, spending time with his two teenage sons. and taking walks around Town Lake.
GIS areas of specialty: Cartography, Remote Sensing, Geosciences, Hydrology & Hydrogeology, Federal Government, Data Management, Scripting & Programming, Data Automation